Electronic health records and industry vendors took center stage throughout the 4th annual Healthcare Trade Faire & Regional Conference November 19 in downtown Atlanta.
Sponsored by the Georgia chapter of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the healthcare-wide and impending EHR-focused issues of HITECH stimulus funding, meaningful use and implementation drew a record attendance of 500 healthcare professionals, according to chapter President Don Kinser.
Greenway Medical Technologies Vice President of Marketing, Corporate Development and Government Affairs Justin Barnes debuted the conference as keynote speaker. In his capacity as chairman of the HIMSS Electronic Health Records Association, Barnes detailed the stimulus incentives of EHR adoption in his presentation “ARRA-HITECH: Understanding & Optimizing the EHR Incentives for Georgia Healthcare Providers – Perspectives for all size Hospitals and Physician Practices.”
“The goal of the HITECH Act is a systemic interoperability across the country, reaching three hundred to three hundred and fifty thousand providers nationwide. It’s about managing the heartbeat of your practice,” said Barnes. While he diagrammed the high-profile Medicaid and Medicare EHR adoption incentives offered during coming years, Barnes also revealed less well known but sizable incentives also available for Health Information Exchanges, Regional Extension Centers, Federal Qualified Health Centers and the undertaking of broadband capabilities, all while noting, for example, the $1.5 billion alone that is available from the Health Resources and Services Administration
When practices review EHR vendors for stimulus implementation, he advised attendees to cross reference a system’s certification, KLAS scores and HIMSS Davies Awards among other criteria. And incentives don’t stop with implementation. “Only five percent of practices undertake clinical trials,” he noted. “Trials and research are a source of ROI and income per patient. Think of the clinical trials and research you could do.”
Barnes’ keynote dovetailed into conference sessions such as EHR rollout, eMAR in 90 days, the medical home and “liberating data.” At an overflow CIO roundtable session, panelists grappled with the conflicting objectives of data security and the exchange of patient records. Attendees agreed that systems need sustainable IT funding like that found in other industries, and pointed to the adoption of mobile banking models, both in technical terms and as an analogous strategy, to assure stakeholders of the stability of healthcare technology.
“This is a good time to have a good relationship with your vendor,” recommended panelist Ron Strachan, CIO of Wellstar Health Systems. “Should you make diagnostics from the view of an iPhone? No, that’s not meaningful use. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”
A discussion of meaningful use capped the conference, as attendees were given a preview of the critical components of CPOE, e-prescribing, standardized information exchange, quality reporting and other tenets of EHR adoption to procure incentive funds. But, like in the other major sessions, attendees were urged to consider the idealistic and attainable goals of the HITECH Act.
“Meaningful use is understanding what an EHR is and should do,” said presenter Donna Schmidt, chief nursing officer of CSC Healthcare Group. “Meaningful use takes the ambiguity away and allows for prioritizing.”
Echoed presenter David Stewart, GAHIMSS board member, “Meaningful use is the enabler to define quality care and to survive and achieve under any healthcare reform scenario.”
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Greenway sponsors Vision 2020 HIT symposium
Greenway Medical Technologies’ areas of expertise were on full display November 10 at the Woodruff Arts Center in downtown Atlanta during a special symposium on healthcare technology.
Health data exchange, EHR capabilities, meaningful use, sustainability and regional extension centers were just some of the topics that dominated panel discussions during “Vision 2020.” Hosted by the Technology Association of Georgia, panelists from academic, governmental and private industry healthcare pursuits led an audience of approximately 300 through the critical challenges the year 2020 foreshadows.
As a gold sponsor of the event, Greenway’s presence was also on display in program materials and through a sponsor’s reception the night of November 9. Greenway business partner Intel Health was also a sponsor of the event.
Moderated by CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and Wayne Oliver, vice president of the Center for Health Transformation, itself a strategic legislative partner of Greenway Medical, panelists ranged from the Georgia Department of Community Health and the Grady Health System to the Health Services Research Institute at Georgia State University, to Cisco Systems, Verizon Wireless and the National Health Museum, recently located to Atlanta from its origins in Washington, D.C.
One theme during the day was linking as divergent a state as Georgia, with its mix of rural and urban health systems and infrastructure matched by socioeconomic challenges. David Hartnett, vice president of technology industry expansion for the Metro Atlanta Chamber, advocated a shared service model toward implementation costs for small or rural practices outside of major infrastructure, while panelists agreed there are resources available to expand it.
Recently in Georgia, for example, only 20 of 150 available broadband grants have been funded, meaning untapped means of HIT expansion are available, but to indefinitely sustain a national network “levels of one to three percent of all healthcare spending devoted to IT is not enough,” said Hal Scott, vice president of Information Systems and CIO of MCG Health System, “especially in the face of uncertain declines in reimbursement. There are going to be enormous demands put on the systems through the collection of data. Right now we’re very euphoric about available resources, but what happens when we get what we ask for?”
By 2020, panelists agreed, what will happen is the realization of a shared vision of a healthcare system that knows few boundaries.
Health data exchange, EHR capabilities, meaningful use, sustainability and regional extension centers were just some of the topics that dominated panel discussions during “Vision 2020.” Hosted by the Technology Association of Georgia, panelists from academic, governmental and private industry healthcare pursuits led an audience of approximately 300 through the critical challenges the year 2020 foreshadows.
As a gold sponsor of the event, Greenway’s presence was also on display in program materials and through a sponsor’s reception the night of November 9. Greenway business partner Intel Health was also a sponsor of the event.
Moderated by CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and Wayne Oliver, vice president of the Center for Health Transformation, itself a strategic legislative partner of Greenway Medical, panelists ranged from the Georgia Department of Community Health and the Grady Health System to the Health Services Research Institute at Georgia State University, to Cisco Systems, Verizon Wireless and the National Health Museum, recently located to Atlanta from its origins in Washington, D.C.
One theme during the day was linking as divergent a state as Georgia, with its mix of rural and urban health systems and infrastructure matched by socioeconomic challenges. David Hartnett, vice president of technology industry expansion for the Metro Atlanta Chamber, advocated a shared service model toward implementation costs for small or rural practices outside of major infrastructure, while panelists agreed there are resources available to expand it.
Recently in Georgia, for example, only 20 of 150 available broadband grants have been funded, meaning untapped means of HIT expansion are available, but to indefinitely sustain a national network “levels of one to three percent of all healthcare spending devoted to IT is not enough,” said Hal Scott, vice president of Information Systems and CIO of MCG Health System, “especially in the face of uncertain declines in reimbursement. There are going to be enormous demands put on the systems through the collection of data. Right now we’re very euphoric about available resources, but what happens when we get what we ask for?”
By 2020, panelists agreed, what will happen is the realization of a shared vision of a healthcare system that knows few boundaries.
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